Good morning. Oracle Corp.'s cloud revenue more than offset a decline in new software licenses, a sign that the company is taking advantage of a fundamental shift in the way that companies use software. It was the third straight quarter in which cloud revenue offset the decline in new licences, the WSJ's Jay Greene reports. "In a conference call with analysts, Oracle co-Chief Executive Safra Catz said the pivot to the cloud was in full swing. She predicted cloud revenue will overtake new software-license revenue in the next fiscal year," Mr. Greene reports.

Oracle is investing heavily in the construction of data centers to support the growth of its cloud business at all levels. To date, it has seen most of its growth in the provision of applications and software platforms over the cloud, although it plans to ramp up its business in the area of cloud infrastructure, where Amazon.com Inc. has been most dominant. On Wednesday, the company announced a cloud computing deal with media company Hearst.

More cloud deals on the way?The Register says Oracle's Larry Ellison predicts that "'some of our largest customers' are negotiating huge infrastructure as a service contracts to move all their databases to the Oracle cloud. You can expect some of those big deals to be announced in the coming weeks."

Companies facing security personnel shortage. Companies will face a shortage of 1.8 million information security personnel by 2022, up 20% from 1.5 million in 2015, according to a survey released in February by Booz Allen Hamilton and ISC2, a cybersecurity education group.“There’s a whole range of skills needed,” Bill Phelps, head of U.S. commercial business at Booz Allen, tells CIO Journal. The best candidates have a mix of technical understanding and experience with corporate risk mitigation tactics, he said. “It’s hard to create these people.”

Lincoln Financial Group adds digital chief reporting directly to CEO. Raj Chakraborty, who comes from Accenture PLC, will join the firm’s senior management committee and be responsible for creating and implementing an “enterprise-wide digital business transformation strategy” focused on improving the customer experience.

TECHNOLOGY NEWS

Alleged Yahoo hacker Karim Baratov at an auto show in Toronto last August.

PETRINA GENTILE

Two Russian spies charged in Yahoo hack. Federal authorities have charged four men, including two officers from Russia’s secretive Federal Security Service, with hacking computer systems at Yahoo Inc. and stealing personal data from about at least 500 million Yahoo accounts , the Journal's Aruna Viswanatha reports. The men used some of that stolen information to obtain access to Yahoo, Google and other webmail providers, including accounts of Russian journalists, U.S. and Russian government officials and private-sector employees of financial, transportation and other companies, the Justice Department said in a statement Wednesday. One of the men, a Canadian and Kazakh national, was taken into custody on Tuesday in Canada, authorities said. The other three are believed to be in Russia.

The Journal's Nathan Hodge writes that the case appears to overlap with a major cybercrime scandal in Russia earlier this year where at least two intelligence officials at the FSB and an employee at Kaspersky Lab were arrested. Russian news media speculated the arrests were tied to a hacking collective named “Shaltai Boltai,” a shadowy group that earned notoriety in Russia by leaking the private correspondence of high-ranking government officials.

Google, Facebook build a data highway to Asia. And the main financier of Alphabet Inc.'s and Facebook Inc.’s new trans-Pacific internet cable between Los Angeles and Hong Kong is a 56-year-old Chinese real-estate magnate looking to branch out. The first such cable to be majority owned by a Chinese company is likely to attract more attention from the U.S. government, a former federal cyber official tells the WSJ. Google said the project, called the Pacific Light Cable Network, will help it provide faster service to Asian customers. Both Facebook and Google are blocked in China.

SocGen goes cloud. Societe Generale SA is preparing to be the first major European financial institution to move most of its operations to the cloud, Bloomberg reports. The Paris-based bank, which for the past year has been working on pilot programs with engineers from Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Corp.'s Azure, plans to start using external cloud services for some non-client content by June. Carlos Goncalves, the head of global technology services, tells Bloomberg that the bank intends to have 80% of its infrastructure on internal and external cloud networks by 2020. Tech providers say cost issues are pushing more banks, European and otherwise, to the cloud.

Boards, consider the CIO. The good: The number of CIOs on boards has increased 71% over the last two years, says executive search firm Korn Ferry in Harvard Business Review. The could-be-better: Thirty-one percent of Fortune 100 companies currently have a CIO on their boards. The pitch, according to Charlie Feld, former CIO at Delta Air Lines, Frito-Lay, and BNSF Railway: "Traditionally, boards have tended to stay out of operational functions, but technology is so pervasive that the best practice is to have direct board engagement in technology through active committees, just as they would with audit, compensation, and other key areas.”

Mobileye acquisition to puts Intel's history to the test. Intel Corp. is counting on its $15.3 billion planned purchase of Mobileye NV to propel it deeper into the market for autonomous-vehicle technology, but the chip maker has a mixed record trying to sync acquisitions with its core operations, the WSJ's Ted Greenwald writes. Case in point, its 2010 $7.68 billion acquisition of cybersecurity-software company McAfee Intel hoped combining with McAfee would help it sell specialized chips and other products to keep smartphones, tablets and other connected devices secure, but it has struggled to gain traction in that market.

Fintech firms get chance to apply for banking licence. Fintech got a thumbs-up from regulators on Wednesday, as a long-awaited national banking license for financial-technology firms took shape, the WSJ reports.

Tesla raises additional funds for Model 3 debut.Tesla Inc. is fundraising again, looking to raise $1 billion in capital ahead of the launch of a lower-priced electric car called the Model 3, the WSJ's John D. Stoll reports. Billed as a cheaper offering by a company known for pricey super cars, the Model 3 is intended to sell in much higher volumes than the current models and compete with more mainstream brands.

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW

To build a wall, President Donald Trump in a fiscal 2018 budget blueprint is calling for sharp cuts to spending on foreign aid assistance, the arts, environment and public broadcasting. (WSJ)

Optimism is giving way to impatience among makers of excavators and heavy machinery that hope their businesses will benefit from President Donald Trump’s pledge to pump $1 trillion into infrastructure. (WSJ)